Final numbers haven’t been crunched, but Inside Out’s first foray into Ottawa has turned a modest profit says programming director Jason St-Laurent.
The festival, which was planned in just three months, didn’t have time to apply for funding from the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa Arts Council or Canada Council for the Arts.
“For a festival where we had to underwrite, that we turned a profit, that’s going to send all the right messages to our board of directors,” says St-Laurent.
Toronto’s Inside Out is the fourth largest queer film festival in the world. Organizers banked on Ottawa for their first satellite weekend and were rewarded with 1500 patrons over four days.
And according to St-Laurent, that’s just the beginning.
“For someone to go to a 2pm screening, they need to get a sense of festival fever. In Toronto, you can start as early as noon and have screenings as late as midnight. For Ottawa, it will take a couple of years for that to catch on,” he says.
Why you can trust Xtra
